Master A 2013 : L’interview de Mantis !

Gilou : Is your first participation in Masters ? If no, how much ?Mantis : Yes, I joined the site last January and jumped right into tournaments. It was a learning experience at first, but seemed to get the hang of it, and was fortunate to qualify for this Masters.

Gilou : How do you qualify you ? (WT’s Classement, Points and all other commentary about this question)Mantis : I certainly wasn’t competing for most points in the WT, but I was in a pretty good position to finish in the top 8 going into the last few tournaments of the year. A win in Honolulu and a final in the WT 500 Montreal helped assure my spot in the top 8, finishing 7th with 2080 points.

Gilou : What do you think about your Master ? (Luck, Regrets, Way, …)Mantis : Overall, I was very happy with how I performed, but I’d be lying if I said I didn’t want to win! I did about as good as I could hope as inspector, one costly mistake in NY against scalpaf, then to drop my final game as inspector was disappointing as I had a chance to earn the tie, but guessed wrong leading to my only head to head loss. As far as how other things fell, I can’t say I was terribly surprised by the order of finish, but I was impressed with how dominant cyanidrik was. He maintained his impressive WT statistics through the Masters when playing against the toughest competition. I’ll enjoy taking the ‘titles’ of best inspector and best extension player for this Masters. I enjoyed it, and hope to be competing in it again next year!

Gilou : What do you think about the other Master ?Mantis : I do envy the speed with which the Master B took place, and also for the thrill of how close it was with four players all very close. It looks like Childe really stepped things up with a very strong performance after a mediocre WT, he’ll be a threat to look out for in the coming year. Garvoo has always been an impressive Jack, but can struggle at times as inspector, this tournament showed him to be dominant as inspector, while grabbing the title of best Jack, unfortunately the matches didn’t quite work out for him leading to 2nd place despite the best overall W-L record. Also a kudos to fellow rookie LousyLoserJB, who had a solid WT, and followed it up with an excellent run as inspector, finishing with the best inspector record in this Masters.Gilou : Do you want to play faster ? You need to go to the Master B this year !!! 😉

Gilou : Do you have a word to tell to the 2 Champions ? (And at who you want !)Mantis :Well, I did my non-winner shout outs already, so I’ll stick with the two champs here. Divac, way to go, you got the huge win in the final game against garvoo to grab the title…winning back to back is impressive!! And, in my humble opinion, this years Masters B class was tougher than last years, making that feat even more impressive. You beat me in our only head to head in NY, and I suspect you’ll be adding a WT title to your resume soon, and suspect if you don’t miss a big chunk of 2014 that you’ll be right there for the Master A come December.

Cyanidrik, you did it! You overcame your nemesis (me :-P) to grab a tie and propel you to the title. I got you in the extension and I bet you thought it’d be more of the same, but you came back in your strength and swept NY to even things up. You were dominant as inspector and impressive as Jack, you made these top tier opponents look ordinary, kudos to you, enjoy your title!!

Gilou : What do you feel about your Matchs* (or Opponent) ?Mantis :Ahh, everything felt pretty good early on as things really went my way in the extension, with 3 sweeps and 4 draws. New York and Standard didn’t go as well, but against such tough opponents I didn’t expect to continue that way. Overall I felt good about my matches, a little disappointed not to hold the lead I earned against cyanidrik in extension, and losing my final match against scalpaf in standard that could have earned a tie. But for both those downsides, grabbing wins against 5 other quality opponents makes me feel good about my matches.

Gilou : Have you some games which you want to come back ? (Rounds’ Analyses, the Scandalous Hazard who kill …)Mantis : It’s been awhile, and I didn’t take notes as the games were happening, so I don’t have too much to say here. The one match I remember and want to comment on was extension game cyanidrik (I) v. Mantis (J). (#181824). This game started out in such an interesting way, where for the first time I’ve ever seen, and probably just about the 1st time ever between 2 knowledgable players, that Goodley was left to 1.4. Was an interesting draw in round 1, where at 1.2 I was left with Bert, Lestrade, & Goodley and I could play Bert and Lestrade and surround Goodley with 4 others so Goodley and those 4 were all forced in the light while the other 3 were all threatening escape. He had to move 2 of the other 3 together to prevent escape, meaning I could keep 7 legitimate suspects. More importantly, because I was Bert, I did not give cyanidrik any indication which character I was…which allowed me to maintain Bert/Lestrade to round 7 and win a true 50/50.

Gilou : Do you think participate in WT 2O14 ?Mantis :Definitely, I had a lot of fun playing in 2013, but it did take me awhile to get a handle on the game, having only played in the standard variant before this year, and even then only 20-30 games in person, against other relatively inexperienced players. This year I hope to get out of the gate stronger and keep the momentum from this Masters going. The other big thing for me is performing well in the WT1000, they seem to be the most exciting with everyone in 1 big tournament, unfortunately those were my weakest point last season advancing in only 1 of 3, and losing in 1/8ths in that one…a deep run in a WT1000 would be very exciting.

Gilou : Would you have a word to tell more ?Mantis : I just want to thank all the participants and the organizers for making this enjoying diversion possible. It’s a blast and I look forward to another year.

Thank Mantis to answer my questions and see you soon in the District !